Vermeer's The Concert

Monday, June 27, 2011

Feds: Whitey Visited Boston 'Armed To Teeth'

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/whitey-bulger-extended-coverage/28372476/detail.htmlBulger Came To Boston For 'Unfinished Business'

BOSTON -- James “Whitey” Bulger has admitted traveling to Boston on several occasions during his 16 years on the run, according to a government affidavit filed in Boston federal court Monday.

After his arrest, Bulger waived his Miranda rights and admitted that he had been a frequent traveler as a fugitive, prosecutors said.

He came to Boston in disguise “armed to the teeth," because he “had to take care of some unfinished business,” Bulger is said to have told FBI agents.

Bulger refused to elaborate on whom he visited, when exactly he visited, and who was with him on these trips to Boston.Bulger also told federal agents that he visited Las Vegas on numerous occasions to play the slots and claimed he won more than he lost, the affidavit said.

Bulger is also alleged to have said that his brother, former Massachusetts Senate President William Bulger, might be willing to assist in posting bail for his longtime companion, Catherine Greig.

William Bulger frowned when the same representation was made in court on Friday.The information came as part of the government's motion to deny Bulger a taxpayer-funded attorney.

"Bulger’s long time criminal colleagues - Steven Flemmi and Kevin Weeks - have both told investigators that Bulger has been hiding money for years," the affidavit read.

Bulger claims he needs a court-appointed attorney because he is indigent. In court on Friday, he told Judge Marianne Bowler he could pay for his defense "if (she) gave him his money back."

Bulger is due back in federal court in Boston tomorrow at 2 p.m. for a hearing on his request for a public defender.

Greig has also informed the court she has hired noted Boston defense attorney Kevin Reddington to represent her. She is due back in court Thursday.

Cooper and Stern on ‘Whitey’ team

Cooper, of Todd & Weld, declined to comment. Stern, a lawyer at Stern, Shapiro, Weissberg & Garin, could not be reached.

In related news, it appears that Bulger may not get much chance to deal with U.S. District Court Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf.

Hours before Wolf is slated to preside over a hearing in the much-discussed case, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz has announced that her office is dismissing all the1994 RICO/extortion indictments against Bulger. The prosecution will instead focus its efforts on 1999 RICO charges, which allege 19 predicate acts of murder.

“A jury finding on any single act of murder, if coupled with a finding on one additional predicate act of racketeering, will subject the defendant to a sentence of incarceration for the remainder of his natural life,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred M. Wyshak Jr. wrote.

The legal maneuver could spell the end of Wolf’s involvement in the high-profile case, as the 1999 indictments are currently assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns.

While Wolf may take a different position on who will oversee the case, an Ortiz spokeswoman said it will proceed in Stearns’ session.

Either way, it is expected Wolf will still preside over the legal-counsel questions on the docket for this afternoon.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — James “Whitey” Bulger may never have had to fill out a tenant application for the rent-controlled apartment near the beach where he and girlfriend Catherine Greig lived out their 16-year retirement on the run, the building owner’s widow said.

“I don’t think he ever filled it out,” Ruth Nourafchan told the Herald. “This was a different time.”

Nourafchan said her husband, Elis Nourafchan, who died several months ago, “did get upset” at a former building manager, who is now deceased, for failing to screen prospective tenants.

“She was very cavalier about running the place, but it ran well, and only once in a while did he step in,” Nourafchan said.

Bulger and Greig lived in the Princess Eugenia building at 1012 3rd St. since at least 1996, under the names Charles and Carol Gasko. The apparent lack of tenant screening, with no credit-check application, would have fit in perfectly with their paper-free lifestyle: They had no land-line telephone, no car and were said to pay for everything, including their $1,145 monthly rent, in cash.

Bulger most likely found the place as most tenants did in the mid-1990s, Nourafchan suggested — by walking by and seeing the “for rent” sign out front.

“This was a big shock for all of us. It’s like a movie,” Nourafchan said. “We had no idea who he was. No idea about the whole thing.”

Question: Why would someone put a for rent sign in the window for a rent control apartment? If the guy up the street is getting $3000 and you're charging $1200, wouldn't you call your friends and family before you put a sign out? Any property manager with a half a brain would know he'd end up dealing with deadbeat tenants once you put out a sign like that. That's NOT how Whitey got this apartment!!!! Whitey had help every step of the way. Since John Connolly has been in the can for the past few years, that only leaves one other likely person, or the FBI protecting their former star witness.

I would suggest that someone,-(any government entity, non-partisan,or courts)investigate the US Marshall records the possibility that they were in "WITNESS PROTECTION".

Guest Column: To Bulger prosecutors: You can’t handle the truth!

“The truth? You can’t handle the truth!” When Jack Nicholson snarled those famous lines in a courtroom during the film “A Few Good Men,” he could just as easily have been reciting lines in Martin’s Scorsese’s “The Departed,” where he played the role of Frank Costello, a Boston mobster, the inspiration for whom is none other than James J. “Whitey” Bulger.

Bulger, 81, was captured by chest-thumping federal agents in Santa Monica last week, and whisked to a Boston courtroom. He faces 19 murder charges, as well a series of other counts painting a picture of him as the consummate mobster. He’s been on the run for 16 years, and lived for 15 of those years in plain view in the California sunshine.

FBI press releases make it sound like the capture of this aged star of its Most Wanted list is a brilliant law enforcement coup. Few stop to question how it is that he managed to elude detection in an affluent community for so long. Both Bulger and bin Laden can teach fugitives everywhere a thing or two. It pays, we learn, to have friends in high places.

The prosecution of Whitey Bulger may turn out to be the most significant investigation of how law enforcement does its job since the Church Committee blew the lid off the CIA and FBI treatment of domestic dissent in the 1970s. If Bulger strikes boldly and without flinching, he should be able to force the Government to make choices about how much truth it is willing to tell the people of Boston, and the American public, about the manner and means by which the feds seek to bring people to justice.

The truth is that the Government lies routinely. It seeks to hold people accountable by denying accountability for its own actions. Despite bold promises of transparency, the Justice Department shares plenty with the former Kremlin: knowing where the bodies lie is as important as knowing the way to the men’s room for the good little boys and girls hoping to hopscotch their way to the top.

Bulger was a federal informant. He was a rat. A tool in the Government’s hands as it sought to chip away at other organized crime families in New England. Just who was his handler? How much information did he give the feds? How much did the feds give him? Asking these questions, and insisting on answers, may well be Bulger’s best defense.

In general, the activities of confidential informants are shielded from public view. Federal prosecutors work hard to keep defendants from ever learning their identities. Efforts are made to build cases without burning these sources. It is the domestic variant of a legal doctrine that justifies resorting to any and all means in the international context, the so-called reasons of state doctrine. But the means, we tell our children, justify any and all ends. Why are we so quick to forget to this when the Government acts?

There is a broad consensus that reliance upon snitches corrupts the criminal justice process. Professor Alexandra Natapoff, of the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, has written an entire book on the subject, Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice, published in 2009. She has testified before Congress. But when you try to qualify her as an expert to testify before a jury about the games that are played with informants, judges won’t let her testify. I offered her as a witness in a New London murder case a year ago. The judge said this scholar who educated Congress isn’t good enough for a jury. Go figure. (Check out her blog on snitches at: http://www.snitching.org/)

So into court now walks Whitey Bulger, a man with a past, a reputed mobster, accused of murdering 19 and running Boston’s Winter Hill Gang as though he were a medieval potentate. He was an outlaw, right? A mass murderer, right? The Devil’s own agent, correct? He was also a snitch for the feds, a tool Uncle Sam used against its enemies. Just how dirty are Uncle’s hands?

We get the government we deserve. A government that relies on lies, practices deceit, and looks askance at murder is a government unworthy of our respect. Hence, the Achilles Heel in the case of United States v. James Whitey Bulger. How hard will the Justice Department fight to keep us from knowing the truth about the FBI and those who used Bulger as he used them? I am guessing the Government will declare these truths to be irrelevant.

Bulger is in the fight of his life now. The Government doesn’t count the money it spends; it weighs it after taking it from us. And then it lies to us to get what it thinks we need. An aggressive defense of Whitey Bulger might yield an uncomfortable truth: when the Government and organized crime get into bed together, we can’t tell the difference between the two.

Just how much truth is Boston prepared to hear? I’m willing to bet the Government will try like Hell to keep the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from being aired.An odd turnabout that we now depend on Whitey Bulger to tell us truth. I’m betting the Government won’t let him or the Government’s agent tell it. And that might be Bulger’s best defense.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTDISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS)UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ))v. ) CRIMINAL NO. 99-10371-RGS)JAMES J. BULGER )))GOVERNMENT’S SUBMISSION RE:DEFENDANT BULGER’S REQUESTFOR COURT APPOINTED COUNSELGovernment counsel and defense counsel have conferredregarding whether an agreement can be reached to resolve thedispute concerning defendant Bulger’s eligibility for theappointment of counsel. No such agreement has been reached.With respect to the appropriate process to be utilized fordeciding defendant Bulger’s eligibility for appointment ofcounsel, the parties also disagree. The government respectfullyurges the Court to require affidavits from the defendant’sbrothers, William and John, before deciding whether the defendantis entitled to taxpayer funded counsel.Defendant James Bulger has the burden of proving he cannotafford to retain counsel. United States v. Harris, 707 F.2d 653,660 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 997 (1983); United Statesv. Salemme, 985 F.Supp. 197, 201 (D.Mass.1997). To date, he hasnot met that burden. As one district court has noted, “[i]ndetermining whether a defendant is unable to retain counsel, thecourt may consider whether he has income or assets available tohim from other sources.” Salemme, 985 F. Supp. at 201, citingUnited States v. Barcelon, 833 F.2d 894, 897 n.5 (10th Cir.1987). The First Circuit has ruled that a district court hasCase 1:99-cr-10371-RGS Document 611 Filed 06/27/11 Page 1 of 5“jurisdiction to make inquiries which are necessary and relevantto an evaluation of a party’s alleged inability to pay.” UnitedStates v. Lyons, 898 F.2d 210, 216 (1st Cir. 1990).

On the evening of June 22, 2011, the FBI arrested defendantJames Bulger outside his apartment in Santa Monica, CA. Duringhis more than sixteen years as a fugitive in this case, Bulgerfinanced a relatively comfortable lifestyle for himself and hisgirlfriend, Catherine Greig. Indeed, upon arrest, his rentcontrolled apartment was found to contain $822,198 in cash - muchof it in packages containing $100 bills that were bundledtogether and hidden inside a wall in the apartment.1While in custody and en route to Boston, defendant Bulgerwaived his Miranda rights and admitted that he had been afrequent traveler as a fugitive. Bulger acknowledged visitingLas Vegas on numerous occasions to play the slots and claimed hewon more than he lost.

Bulger also admitted traveling to San Diego and then crossing over into Tijuana to purchase medicines.Moreover, according to FBI Supervisory Special Agent RichardTeahan, Bulger admitted traveling (in disguise) to Boston onseveral occasions while “armed to the teeth” because he “had totake care of some unfinished business.” Bulger refused toelaborate on whom he visited, when exactly he visited, and whowas with him on these trips to Boston. While Bulger alsoadmitted that he had previously stashed money with people he1Investigators also found two cell phones and other itemswhich are still being analyzed to determine, inter alia, thewhereabouts of additional assets.-2-Case 1:99-cr-10371-RGS Document 611 Filed 06/27/11 Page 2 of 5trusted, he did not identify anyone who might be currently hidinghis assets.The foregoing facts are of course significant because theyindicate Bulger may have additional assets and/or allies willingto assist him in his current predicament. In fact, after beingarrested, defendant Bulger told the U.S. Pretrial Services officein Los Angeles that defendant’s brother, William Bulger, might bewilling to assist in posting bail for defendant’s long timecompanion, Catherine Greig. Of course, if that is true, WilliamBulger might also be willing to pay for an attorney to representhis brother, James Bulger. Accordingly, the Court should requirean affidavit from William Bulger on that issue.Bulger’s long time criminal colleagues - Steven Flemmi andKevin Weeks - have both told investigators that Bulger has beenhiding money for years. In fact, Bulger’s other brother - JohnBulger - was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in2003 after lying to a federal grand jury about several mattersincluding his role in managing defendant Bulger’s financialaffairs which involved assisting defendant Bulger in hidingassets in Florida. Specifically, from May 1996 through May 2000,John Bulger used checks from his own personal checking account tomake the annual rent payments for a safe deposit box at AmSouthBank in Clearwater, Florida which had been originally opened in1992 in defendant James Bulger’s name.2 A federal search warrant2 The other name on the safe deposit box account was anotherlong time companion of defendant Bulger: Theresa Stanley. Shehas advised investigators of the following: she was asked by-3-Case 1:99-cr-10371-RGS Document 611 Filed 06/27/11 Page 3 of 5executed in June 2001 revealed an empty safe deposit box.James Bulger stands accused of an avalanche of seriouscharges. Surely the possibility of being prosecuted for perjuryif he files a false financial affidavit in this case is of noconcern to him - he has every incentive to lie and stick thetaxpayers with the bill for his defense. Accordingly, the Courtshould not simply rely on Bulger’s own claims of indigence butinstead should make further inquiry on this matter by requiringsworn affidavits from the defendant’s brothers, William and John.Respectfully submitted,CARMEN M.ORTIZUnited States AttorneyBy: /s/ Brian T. KellyDATED: June 27, 2011 BRIAN T. KELLYChief, Public Corruption UnitFRED M. WYSHAK, JR.Senior Litigation CounselAssistant U.S. Attorneysdefendant Bulger to sign her name on this account; she neverreturned to the bank thereafter; she does not know what wasstored in the safe deposit box; she never received anycorrespondence or paid any fees relating to the safe deposit box;and she never discussed the matter with anyone other thandefendant James Bulger.-4-Case 1:99-cr-10371-RGS Document 611 Filed 06/27/11 Page 4 of 5CERTIFICATE OF SERVICESuffolk, ss. Boston, MassachusettsJune 27, 2011I, Brian T. Kelly, Assistant U.S. Attorney, do herebycertify that I have caused a copy of the foregoing to be servedon defense counsel in this case (Peter Krupp, Esq.)./s/ Brian T. KellyBRIAN T. KELLYChief, Public Corruption UnitAssistant U.S. Attorney-5-